The argument of some who fail to participate in the Divine Service is that “the Mass is long.” If we were to assume that we enter into the game of time and calculate the time of the entire service, including the sermon, we would find that it does not exceed, in general, one hour, and in addition to this hour is the time required for the faithful to receive communion.
It is no secret that the experience of those who have fallen under the pressure of time is based exclusively on their participation in the services of the holy feasts, which are generally long, because they include attractive and rich preparatory prayers. Or it (their experience) is based on comparing the service in our church with the service of other churches... And the faithful, in general, do not know that the Sunday Mass, for example, is preceded by the Matins prayer, which sings the resurrection of the Lord each time in several ways and with various melodies, or carries the meaning of the occasion, so they link it to the Mass to establish their conclusion and excuse for their absence.
The question that arises is: Is it permissible to link divine service to time? This question may not seem fundamental to those who live under the pressure of time. But it is an essential question, and in answering it those who love to understand may understand the reason for the widespread deviation that almost crushes commitment. What those who know know is that God, who bowed the heavens, came down to us, and redeemed us with His blood, came only to save us from the density of time and the limits of scope and to grant us eternal life. The reason for God the Father’s plan is not only to save us from sin, but also to raise us to heaven where time and scope are abolished and love alone prevails. Love does not accept to be limited by time and everything that makes us reside in this “present deceptive age.” Let us take, for example, a young man and a young woman who are in love and are together in a joint encounter, and let us ask them this question: Do you accept that your encounter ends? It is impossible for either of them to answer: “Yes.” Love in the heart rejects time because it threatens the encounter and its continuation. In church life, the meeting of the community with the Lord is based on love and its goal is love. Therefore, its first enemy is that those who meet accept to subject their meeting to the pressure of time, and to search for determining its time and end.
It is true that every church meeting has its end, but it is based primarily on the recognition that God has abolished time and has eternally embraced us. The end of the service was nothing but a promise of another meeting, so that God may raise us up to Himself and we may dwell in the “day” that has no evening. This final image that our heritage has known and described the divine service with is the best proof that God abolishes time in the Mass. This is what we mean at the opening of the service when we say: “Blessed is the kingdom of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…” We bless the final kingdom that descends upon us in the time of satisfaction and that carries us, in this time, beyond time, to the triune God who dwells in the light and wants us in and from it.
What confirms, then, that the divine service does not accept, in its essence, to be limited by time, is that the Church rejects, in her teaching, any separation between worship and the life of the faithful. This means that those who go to Mass every Sunday and feast morning come from purity to purity, preparing themselves with the love of God and their brothers and with the constant remembrance of the truth. They come from righteousness, from constant prayer, holy hunger, reading the divine word and living it. They reject sin, which captivates those who fall into it and who are immersed in its darkness. They live with complete attention to themselves, and “cleverness of soul” is the first request that the community makes after the transformation of the offerings. They go out into the world after they have inhabited the light to sow the peace that has inhabited them and chosen them, they sow it in a land that the evil one tries, with all his might, to destroy and distort its beauty, and to make them think that it is eternal. They always walk in the hope of meeting the Lord, and their state of mind is what the prophet said: “You have set a table before me.” The great believer sees before him nothing but the Lord’s table spread out and prepared. He sees nothing but the light that he hopes for in meeting the Church, and that he hopes for on the last day. He does not cut himself off (i.e., he cuts himself off from church meetings) lest the Lord cut him off from membership in his last group. Therefore, the true believer does not count the time of his meeting with the Lord, but rather seeks to know Him throughout his life.
The Mass is long, the faithful say: If only it were longer, If only it would never end. True believers cancel their appointments and throw their watches in the trash can before they enter the service of eternity. Nothing worries them, and they care only about the joy of God and union with Him, until God abolishes the present time and duration and grants them final joy and great freedom in a new heaven and a new earth.
About my parish bulletin
Sunday, June 17, 2001
